Tears of a Rose
by LittleMaggie
Summary: A real tear-jerker for those who sympathize for Squee... for Squee has no hope, for he hurts like no child should hurt at his age. And for that, Johnny gives him the one last thing he has left to offer before he goes off... I cried when I wrote it.


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Author's Note: This story takes place sometime after Johnny leaves Squee's bedroom at the end of Book Seven. He sits outside his window, just watching the little boy. This is going along to the Goo Goo Dolls "Acoustic 3". No he is not Michael Jackson-perverted here! He just really likes Squee. And Jhonen Vasquez owns JTHM.

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Tears of a Rose

__

They painted up your secrets

with the lies they told you

and the least they ever gave you

was the most you ever knew

Johnny watched him, the poor little boy, from the darkness of the bushes outside. Johnny didn't know what he was doing there, really – it appeared, though, that at some point he'd found himself out there, holding nothing but a wilting black rose. He had gotten the rose from an old man standing on Main Street, screaming at the sky and throwing flowers at people.

_Being pelted with flowers,_ Johnny thought sadly, _is perhaps the most beautiful way to be stoned to death. There will be flowers on your grave, wouldn't there? And when you disintegrate into ashes, you'll feed the ground where the flower seeds have been planted._

Now he watched Squee intently. Squee's father was pacing the room, speaking to him again:

" Listen, son. I don't know why I have a toy-shaped bruise on the back of my head, but you must have had something to do with it."

Johnny's spine crawled and the guilt in him simmered. Squee was taking the blame.

Squee's father ranted on, " I'm tired of you. You're not getting dinner tonight. And here…" His father yanked off his tie and threw it at Squee. " Maybe you can suck the coffee out of it."

With that, Squee's father was gone.

And Squee sat on the bed, his small hands trembling as he lifted the tie to his eyes. The moonlight drew miserable shapes across his back, his spine an extended ridge, his ribs visible. Dark spots bled through the material of the tie as Squee cried. 

__

And I wonder where these dreams go

When the world gets in your way

What's the point in all this screaming

no one's listening anyway

Johnny listened carefully. They were screaming at one another again – Squee's parents. His mother was shouting, " Why didn't you get me my medicine?"

" Damn it!" Squee's father shouted back. " I have to work! I'm not spending another cent on medicine you don't need!"

" I need my pills!" She shrieked.

A slap echoed through the air.

Squee winced in his bedroom and pulled the covers up over his thin knobby knees, staring down at the pattern on his bedspread. The smiling faces mocked him. The tie in his hands had unwound itself and fallen to the floor in a sad scar across the wooden boards. Squee covered his ears and hummed softly, his voice lilted by his sobs.

__

Your voice is small and fading

And you hide in here unknown

And your mother loves your father

'Cause she's got nowhere to go

Johnny's eyes squinted, adjusting to the quickly approaching nighttime, and he saw that Squee was now trying to fall asleep. Squee's little chest rose irregularly as he tried to force the nighttime into his heart, as he tried to make himself believe that sleep was within his reach.

" Squee," Johnny whispered to himself, wanting to reach out to the little boy, but found his hand retreating before he could grasp Squee's windowpane. He had nothing to offer the boy; nothing to do but sit here and enjoy his last silent vigil with Squee. Perhaps his last evening with the neighborhood. 

Johnny leaned back against the siding of his house, twirling the black rose between his fingers. Somehow it had punctured through his skin. A dark speck of his life fluid, his blood, oozed from the shredded skin and onto the rose, where it slid down to the bottom and hung uncertainly from the stem. The flower drank the blood, drank it and then let go of the rest.

_The last thing this rose will taste is blood_, Johnny thought to himself sadly.

__

And he wonders where these dreams go

'Cause the world got in his way

What's the point ever trying?

Nothing's changing anyway

Mere minutes later, Squee was jerked from his turbulent dreams, his eyes wide as saucers. Another nightmare; suddenly all his desires for sleep were gone. Where had all his sweet dreams gone? He was awake now, staring at the air, thick with inky night in front of him, and grasping at the air thoughtfully, at the shards of joy remaining in his house. Or were they even there?

Johnny shook his head. _Poor Squee, your life, does it mean anything? Is there any reason for you to go on? How can you ever become something, if you are treated like nothing from the start? How can nothing become something, and what's more, how can nothing change? Nothing is a set point. I am nothing. I can't change._

He hung his head in disgust, silver tears sliding down his own nose and hanging from the tip, quivering to the beat of his breath.

__

They press their lips against you

And you love the lies they say

And I tried so hard to reach you

But you're falling anyway

Downstairs, his parents were waking up again. Squee's mother threw the cabinets open in the bathroom and the kitchen, trying to find any medicine. She was mumbling madly about something, her eyes were unfocused, like wild beacons to the madness out there. Her hair was tumbling down her shoulders like a sea of venomous snakes. As she found the sleeping pills, and swallowed them two at a time until she felt the dizzy rush, Squee's mother cried.

And his father cursed into the darkness, cursing Squee to hell and back again.

Upstairs, Squee heard everything and he whispered to Shmee thoughtfully, " It's all my fault, isn't it?" Squee's whispers were erratic, " It was always my fault."

Shmee never did reply. The shame and fear was heavy in the air.

__

And you know I see right through you

When the world gets in your way

What's the point in all the screaming

You're not listening anyway

Johnny stood up, seeing the pink tones of dawn appearing in the sky, like wild salmon darting through the black waters of the sea. He crept slowly towards Squee's window, opened it, and stepped inside. By the time it was light, he was creeping out again, and Squee was still asleep, dreaming unsettling dreams.

Two hours later, Squee woke up.

On his pillow was a black rose. Blood stained his pillow where the rose's stem lay. It had shed tears of blood for Squee. 

Many miles away, Johnny vowed to never feel emotion again, as he looked across the cityscape from a cliff. No, tonight he'd offered his last tears, his last blood, for the world. For Squee, who had no hope, no way out.


End file.
